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trimet: you’re on notice

So there I was, sitting at the bus stop with my kid. This isn’t by any means unusual since I don’t, you know, own a car. Yes, you heard me right. I don’t own a car. We possess no vehicular transportation devices. TriMet is our only way of getting around. Want to know something else? I don’t even know how to drive. Ha!

Usually the bus stop experience is followed closely by a bus boarding experience, but would I be blogging about that? I would not. Well. I might. But such is not the case this time! This time, there was no bus. Oh, there were buses – just not the 75, which was the bus we needed to bring us to our home. I like to go home, especially when I have with me a baby who has reached the end of his out tolerance and also have not eaten anything since 9am, when I had half a bowl of cereal. And a quarter of a muffin. More like a quarter of a quarter of a muffin, since I fed most of it to the wee one. An eighth of a muffin? I am not good with fractions.

The 75 is supposed to come every 15 minutes. In the time we were sitting at the bus stop, no fewer than 3 number 75 buses went by us in the opposite direction. They went, and none came back. Creepy. Also: rar.

Finally I called Not So. “Can you check a schedule for me?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said, because my husband is nice and likes me. He looked up the Stop ID (which was mislabeled – go, TriMet!) and clicked around. “Um, I only see the 8.”

So I put the baby back in his stroller (which did not cause him paroxysms of joy) and trudged the six blocks to MLK. I say ‘trudged’ because I was, at that point, tired and hungry (3pm, hadn’t had lunch yet, etc.) and laden with not only a backpack but a camera bag. Not a slim, light camera bag, either: this one was for the D70, which is somewhat bulky, what with its being a digital SLR-ness. It takes such lovely pictures, though. I digress.

So we got out to MLK, and the bus stop once again indicated in large, friendly type that the 75 would indeed arrive at some point. We waited. Happy Fun Baby demanded release from the stroller, demanded to be bounced, demanded some as-yet unfinished tribute to himself in iambic pentameter. Several buses passed us, none of which were the 75. Again, going the opposite direction, the 75 was as regular as Ex-Lax.

I called Not So again. “Can you check a schedule for me?” I asked.

“Um, I’m not at my desk. We just went to get some coffee. Are you on your way home?”

I did not scream, though I did consider it. “No. I’ll – call you later.”

We got on the next bus that came by, which happened to be a 6. “The 75 doesn’t actually come to this stop, does it?” I asked as we climbed aboard.

“It’s on a reroute,” the driver supplied helpfully. You know what would have been more helpful? IF THIS HAD BEEN MARKED ON THE BUS STOPS. You’d think that if a bus wasn’t going to come there would be some sort of, I don’t know, indication that we were waiting in vain. A sticker, perhaps. A flyer. A big red circle with a line through it. Something.

Just to put the icing on the cake, as we were struggling to our seat (remember, I was carrying the baby, a folded stroller, a camera bag and a backpack on a moving bus) a woman plowed into us so she could ask the driver the same thing I just had. “75?” she said. “Where do I catch the 75?” Note: none of these are excuse me, which I believe is the proper addendum to walking into a mother and her child. She couldn’t have waited until we were seated? There are words I could use.

We got home at 4:20. 2 1/2 hours to go 6.7 miles. And you wondered why we don’t own a car. It’s all about the ride, baby. Yeah.